Iowa: Winners and Losers

The Iowa results are official, and they're quite interesting for us political junkies.

The first thing they tell us is that both parties have wide open races. That, in turn, will encourage folks like Bloomberg, and maybe Ron Paul, to run as independents.

Let's examine the results in turn.

Democrats

Barack Obama is a big winner. He beat expectations, besting both Hillary and Edwards by eight points.

Hillary is a loser for coming in third, but it's not as bad as it looks--she basically tied Edwards. Still, Iowa is going to give Hillary supporters around the country a lot of pause. So far, she hasn't found a strategy for dealing with Obama's popularity.

Edwards is a loser. Oh, his campaign will spin second place (barely) as some sort of win, but let's face it--he pinned everything on Iowa and he really didn't come close to winning. As the campaign turns to New Hampshire, most serious voters are going to be deciding betweeen Hillary and Obama, leaving Edwards far behind. We think he's done, save maybe for a brief showing in Nevada.

Amongst the pollsters, give kudos to the Des Moines Register, which called Obama by seven points, with Hillary and Edwards statistically tied, and which predicted independents would be the key. Maybe give second prize to the Zogby tracking poll for getting the order correct and giving Obama a decent advantage.

Another winner is the Democratic Party, which had robust, enthusiastic turnout across the state, and which reported it's results quickly and professionally. If Democrats can ultimately unite around their nominee--and all indications are that they will--they should win this election.

Republicans

Obviously, Huckabee is a winner, doing slightly better than the polls predicted. He's even showing some teflon coating--just think how much Romney spent on negative advertising without making a dent, even with the Huckster shooting himself in the foot a few times to boot!

But where does the Huckmeister go from here? New Hampshire will be tough on him, but he has opportunities in Michigan and South Carolina. He needs to come up with a national strategy--winning Southern and border states while letting others divide the spoils in the rest of the country. Ed Rollins is smart--he might just get Big Mike across the finish line.

For Huckabee to win, however, he'll need someone to be strong enough to counterpoise McCain in northern states. If it gets down to a race just between Huckabee and McCain, the Huckster will lose.

Romney is a big loser. He spent untold millions on Iowa, used every trick play, brought in all the free agents, and still lost. He's like the New York Yankees. And now there's every sign that Romney will lose New Hampshire to McCain. The one wild card is that with the Democratic race suddenly so interesting, many Granite State independents who would side with McCain may opt to vote in the Democratic primary instead. Romney needs to regroup--his whole campaign could come crashing down in a hurry.

Giuliani is also a loser. He came in SIXTH place, well behind Ron Paul. The Giuliani people will say that's fine--they didn't compete in Iowa. But they did, for awhile, and then gave up. Giuliani could well come in fifth or sixth in New Hampshire too. By the time Florida rolls around, most folks will have forgotten that's he's running.

Ron Paul is a winner. He took home 10%. We sure hope that in the debate this weekend they include Dr. Paul--as one of the top contenders--and exclude Rudy G. With all the money he's got, and his dedicated corps of volunteers, we think Dr. No will ultimately throw his hat in the ring as the candidate of the Libertarian Party come November. Excluding him from the debate will only make that more certain.

The one question still undecided as we sit here tonight is who gets the "honor" of "winning" third place among the GOP field in Iowa. It's neck-and-neck between McCain and Thompson. But, really, WHO CARES?

Let's say Thompson ekes it out over McCain. Big deal. Fred has no standing in New Hampshire, and as we've said a million times, he has no strategy. Where's he going to go next? Fred is dead. A distant third in Iowa, basically tied with someone else, does not a political future make standing alone.

McCain, on the other hand, basically skipped Iowa in the end (unlike Fred, who made the motions of canvassing the state) and has momentum in New Hampshire. We think he's a pretty big winner, because of lot of old time Republicans, horrified at the prospect of Huckabee as their nominee, are going to rally to him.

Amongst the pollsters, the winners are Zogby tracking and Insider Advantage, with an honorable mention to the Des Moines Register. Zogby had Huck up by six points over Romney, with McCain, Thompson and Paul clustered around 10-11% and Giuliani in sixth. Insider Advantage also had Huckabee up by six, with McCain and Thompson tied and Paul close behind, with Giuliani in sixth. The Register had Huckabee up by six, but gave McCain a distinct edge over Thompson, followed by Paul and Giuliani.

And the big poll loser: CNN!! The CNN poll got both elections wrong, predicting Hillary for the Dems and Romney for the GOP and basically getting the rest of it wrong, too. Memo to CNN: fire your pollster!

And finally, another loser: the Republican Party. With turnout far below that of the Democrats, and lackluster rallies for the candidates (compared with those for the Democrats), the Iowa GOP showed little enthusiasm. Their website crashed. They got their results in much slower than the Dems despite smaller numbers and a simpler caucus system. And the party faithful that turned out were so disproportionately evangelical Christians that you really wonder what the party has come to. It really did reflect the party of George W. Bush.

And our final winner: political pundits! Iowa confirmed that this will be a raucous year of elections, with the possibility that the GOP won't even have a candidate come their convention, and with a three-four-or more-way race in November certainly possible.